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In Identity Formation and Diversity in the Early Medieval Baltic and Beyond, contacts between Early Medieval Baltic Finns, Sami, Scandinavians, Slavs and Balts are discussed and exemplified. Communication expressed through material culture is analysed in order to understand the culturally diverse regions in the Baltic and beyond.

The study concludes that there were contacts between Birka and western Finland throughout more or less the whole existence of the town. The earliest evidence of these contacts is from the 760s and the latest from the middle of the tenth century. Unlike other eastern material in Birka, which became much more frequent during the second half of the ninth century the contacts with Finland were constant through time. However, the contacts might not have been very extensive compared to contacts with regions even further east. The study shows that, of the roughly 1,100 graves on Björkö, 13 contained costume details from Finland and 34 pottery of Baltic Finnish ware. The number of graves with objects from Finland amounts to roughly 4% of all the graves in Birka. However, it should be pointed out that this is the minimum amount since there might be pottery, especially coarse ware for cooking and storage, and objects with provenance from the Finnish mainland that cannot be singled out from local material or material from other regions. Interestingly enough, Finnish objects were most frequent in cremation graves under a mound, a form of grave that was very common in the Mälaren valley, and it is likely that the people who performed the funeral ritual followed local customs. However, a large share of objects from Finland occurred in chamber graves as well. This type of grave is believed to represent an elite of warriors and merchants with long-distance contacts. Some of the chamber graves with artefacts from Finland are also among the richest in Birka as regards the amount of grave goods. This shows that members in the leading circle in the town, men as well as women, were part of a network that had direct or indirect contacts with groups on the Finnish mainland. It is generally held impossible to identify ethnic groups based on the grave material in Birka. It is therefore suggested that migration to Birka as well as encounters taking place in the town prompted a dialogue in which different cultural elements were put together in an eclectic way and where local elements became entangled with foreign ones. It is likely that ethnic identities were played down in the town in favour of the construction and negotiation of new identities and affiliations.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03328-2.

The Viking maritime expansion from Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) marks one of the swiftest and most far-flung cultural transformations in global history. During this time (c. 750 to 1050 CE), the Vikings reached most of western Eurasia, Greenland, and North America, and left a cultural legacy that persists till today. To understand the genetic structure and influence of the Viking expansion, we sequenced the genomes of 442 ancient humans from across Europe and Greenland ranging from the Bronze Age (c. 2400 BC) to the early Modern period (c. 1600 CE), with particular emphasis on the Viking Age. We find that the period preceding the Viking Age was accompanied by foreign gene flow into Scandinavia from the south and east: spreading from Denmark and eastern Sweden to the rest of Scandinavia. Despite the close linguistic similarities of modern Scandinavian languages, we observe genetic structure within Scandinavia, suggesting that regional population differences were already present 1,000 years ago. We find evidence for a majority of Danish Viking presence in England, Swedish Viking presence in the Baltic, and Norwegian Viking presence in Ireland, Iceland, and Greenland. Additionally, we see substantial foreign European ancestry entering Scandinavia during the Viking Age. We also find that several of the members of the only archaeologically well-attested Viking expedition were close family members. By comparing Viking Scandinavian genomes with present-day Scandinavian genomes, we find that pigmentation-associated loci have undergone strong population differentiation during the last millennia. Finally, we are able to trace the allele frequency dynamics of positively selected loci with unprecedented detail, including the lactase persistence allele and various alleles associated with the immune response. We conclude that the Viking diaspora was characterized by substantial foreign engagement: distinct Viking populations influenced the genomic makeup of different regions of Europe, while Scandinavia also experienced increased contact with the rest of the continent.

We repurpose a High-Throughput (cell) Imaging (HTI) screen of a glucocorticoid receptor assay to predict target protein activity in multiple other seemingly unrelated assays. In two ongoing drug discovery projects, our repurposing approach increased hit rates by 60- to 250-fold over that of the primary project assays while increasing the chemical structure diversity of the hits. Our results suggest that data from available HTI screens are a rich source of information that can be reused to empower drug discovery efforts.